Zemindar (104 page)

‘Damn!’ said I. ‘The cat is really out of the bag now.’

‘Would you sooner it were not?’ Oliver asked suspiciously.

I shook my head. ‘Of course not. But I would have liked to break it to him gently. To have told him … first.’

Oliver looked at me with a strangely watchful expression in his eyes, but said nothing.

‘Adapt thyself to the things with

which thy lot has been cast; and

the men among whom thou hast

received thy portion; love them,

but do it truly.’

Marcus Aurelius

Since the end of September, native spies and messengers had carried despatches not only to the Alum Bagh but also to Cawnpore. No doubt much of what passed between the commanders of the various posts was secret, but it was common knowledge that General Outram had sent to both Captain Bruce in Cawnpore and Major McIntyre at the Alum Bagh plans of the city of Lucknow and instructions regarding the route to be taken by the relieving column. By the beginning of November we had learned that the Delhi Flying Column was already in Cawnpore, and that in a week or so there would be no less than six thousand men ready to march to our aid. The Alum Bagh was to become the mustering place of all the men, arms and supplies being hurried to us, and someone on General Outram’s staff suggested erecting a semaphore for purposes of communication with that palace, which was visible to the naked eye from the roof of the Resident’s House. Instructions for making this device were discovered in an old copy of the
Penny Encyclopædia
in Mr Gubbins’s library. A few days later the machine was erected on the top of the tower of the Resident’s House, near the flagpole that still flew the Union Jack, and we waited hopefully for the bonfire that would signal the readiness of a similar device at the Alum Bagh.

The period that followed was an unsettling one for the garrison. There, on the highest point in the enclosure, the poles, pulleys and weights informed us that we were open to communication with the wider world, yet that world would not answer us. Thousands of men were mustering to our aid less than forty miles distant, but in the bright clear days of early winter, as in the torrid days of summer, our privations continued and increased. The pandies had drawn back their guns and were now playing at what the men termed ‘Long Bowls’, yet we suffered still the daily quota of death and injury, and the hospital was as full as ever. Indeed, the hospital was a little fuller than it should have been, and in my meddling manner I decided to take it upon myself to expose a malingerer.

Three or four of us had experienced trouble with this man, a hulking brutish corporal of the 78th, who had come in with a bullet in his hand and a gash on his head after a sortie. His hand had healed and he had been sent about his business, only to return the next day draped on a comrade’s back, apparently unconscious. The doctors had examined him cursorily, diagnosed a severe concussion and allowed him to be put on a cot which happened to be vacant.

That had been five days before. The corporal had lain immobile under his blanket, but the small grey eyes in his slab of face shifted quickly about the room, following the ladies as they went about their duties. When a doctor approached, the man either feigned stentorian sleep or moaned piteously of his ‘’ead achin’ somethin’ cruel’. He was no mean actor and doubtless I too would have been taken in had I not been uncomfortably aware of those small eyes upon me whenever I was in his part of the ward. When I took him water, he clasped his hands round mine holding the cup, pulling them down to his level instead of raising his head as he was quite able to do, so that after two or three such encounters I delegated the duty of slaking his thirst to my friend Llewellyn Cadwallader who, presumably, would be spared such unwelcome attentions. But poor young Llew came in for others equally undesirable.

We who worked in the hospital were fond of the lads who shared our tasks, and it was not uncommon for the ladies to save whatever treats came their way for the boys. In this way Llewellyn had one day been in proud possession of two English biscuits—‘Come out of a pretty tin, they did, miss, and with sugar on them,’ he told me, exhibiting his treasures. Shortly afterwards I was dismayed to find him crying his heart out, inexpert, snuffly boy’s sobs, his face streaked with grimy tears. The two precious biscuits had been taken from him. My temper mounted. Who on earth would do such a thing to a mere child?

‘I wouldn’t have minded if he’d taken just one, miss,’ he sniffed, rubbing his wet nose with the back of his hand. ‘I’d have let him have it and not minded really, though they had sugar on them and all, but Sonny should have had his one, miss. He’s only little and I wanted him to have one.’

‘But who was it? Who took them from you, Llew?’ Surely, I thought, no one in the hospital would serve the boy such a trick, and which of the men wandering about the place would even have known he had the things? It must have been one of his schoolmates, I surmised. The usual class bully-boy.

‘Can’t tell you, miss. He cuffed me, you see, and if I tell, he’ll cuff me again proper and worse. He told me so, and he means it.’

Thieving, bullying brute, I seethed to myself, my sense of impotence heightened by the knowledge that I had nothing to offer the lad in compensation. However, there was nothing to be gained in pressing the child for the name of his tormentor, and I watched him wander homeward, trying manfully to still his sobs, a forlorn little figure in the waning autumnal light.

It was time I went home myself. Kate was waiting for me. I went into the ward to fetch my shawl, which I had hung on a nail, and as I pinned it round my shoulders caught Corporal Tuppit’s gaze upon me.

‘Miss,’ he croaked hoarsely. ‘My ’ead! Give us one of them cloths with vinegar on. Really, miss, it ’urts somethin’ awful. All the time, it does.’ With unwilling resignation, I fetched a rag dipped in vinegar and placed it on his low furrowed brow. As I did so he grabbed my hand and squeezed it. ‘Give us a smile then, hey?’ he leered. ‘That’s more good to a sick man than a wet cloth.’

Snatching my hand from him, I gave him what I hoped was a freezing look, and turned majestically away, but not before I noticed that his beard was liberally sprinkled with crumbs and powdered sugar.

The following morning, as Kate and I walked down to the hospital together, I turned the matter over in my mind. On one thing I was determined. Corporal Tuppit would be out of that precious bed by nightfall. My mind, however, was singularly devoid of ideas as to how to achieve this object. Certainly I could have reported my suspicions to one of the doctors; no one would have doubted my observations of the man’s conduct and Corporal Tuppit would have found himself discharged in double quick time. But I wanted to do more than have him ejected. I wanted to expose him for what he was, a lying, cowardly, thieving fraud, and in this unkind determination, eventually, lay my own undoing.

Towards midday, as I was beginning to think without pleasure of the couple of dry
chapattis
in my pocket, I was helping a sick man to re-lay the blanket on his pallet. I got him settled, but as I tucked the blanket around him, a scorpion, barbed tail curved over its back in alarm, scuttled towards my hand. The man laughed as I quickly rose and stamped my foot on it.

‘I remember the time when a lady would’ve screamed just to see one of them things,’ he said admiringly.

‘Oh, we’re all used to them now,’ I assured him. ‘Scorpions, spiders, toads, centipedes, rats and mice, ticks and fleas—we’ve had to deal with them all at one time or another. They don’t really do much harm, though the scorpion has a nasty sting, of course.’

‘That it has, miss. Had one in my groundsheet once. Stung me bad and I was hoppin’ for days. Pain was proper horrid too.’

A sudden illumination filled me.

I searched around for Llewellyn, found him on his way to his meal, and gave him a small lidded tin and certain instructions.

Later in the afternoon Dr Darby came in to do his rounds and I attached myself to him like a docile shadow, the tin, now occupied, safely in my pocket. After what seemed an aeon in my impatience, we approached Corporal Tuppit’s bed. Tuppit lay stiff, suffering almost audibly, eyes closed, hands clenched in agony, breathing noisily through his mouth. He was a pathetic sight.

‘Well, fellow?’ Obviously Dr Darby also had his reservations regarding this patient. Generally his greeting was more cordial. ‘How’s that head of yours today?’

‘Awful, sir.’

‘Hm. Curious that. You should certainly be over that cut on your head by now. No fever. Pulse normal … Hm. I think you’d be better on your feet.’

‘Oh, no, sir! Can’t do that. My legs, sir, they’re numb. Can’t feel a thing in ’em. Like dead they are, sir.’

‘Oh? Something new?’

‘No, sir, been like that all the time.’

‘You haven’t mentioned it before.’

‘I did, sir, to the other doctor.’

‘Well, let’s have a look then.’

Dr Darby turned back the blanket from the bottom of the bed, exposing a pair of large, calloused and dirty feet, one of which he prodded with a pin taken from his lapel. There was absolutely no reaction from Tuppit. He didn’t even blink. But I still had no doubts.

‘Hm. You felt nothing?’

‘Not a bleedin’ thing, sir.’

‘Quite sure?’

‘Certain sure, sir.’

‘Curious. Very curious. Well, stay there until the morning. I’ll have another look at you and see what can be done.’

Dr Darby moved along the line and very solicitously I tucked the blanket in round Tuppit’s feet, having first inserted the now lidless box between the blanket and the pallet.

I followed Dr Darby. We had moved only a couple of beds down the row, when the dozing afternoon ward was electrified by a succession of blood-curdling yells and the spectacle of Corporal Tuppit, clad only in his shirt, hopping like a madman on his pallet, clutching one dirty foot in his hands and with the most gratifying expression of pure agony on his ugly features.

Dr Darby gave him five minutes to dress and remove himself from the hospital. He was a lenient man, Dr Darby. Any of the other medical men would have put the wretch on a charge, and the time was soon to come when I wished very much that such had been done.

I went back to the Gaol filled with a pleasant sense of accomplishment, and told my story to an appreciative audience. Oliver was eating with us, having appeared just as we sat down, with Toddy-Bob behind him carrying a tin pail of gun-bullock soup containing four potatoes and five turnips—a luxury that had to be shared.

The sun was still above the horizon when Oliver and I set out for our evening stroll. A brief shower in the forenoon had served to lay the dust and wash the foliage of the trees; the air was crisp and almost sweet, and on such an evening of soft light and clear distances it was inevitable that we should make for some high point from which we could look out over our stockade to the palaced parklands surrounding us. We chose the roof of a large two-storeyed house known as the Judicial Post, which was commanded by Captain Germon, a young officer of the Native Infantry. It stood on the south-eastern perimeter of the old entrenchment but, due to the expansion of the enclave, was now a safe point from which to view the surrounding countryside and was a favourite spot on such evenings amongst a populace starved of the sight of woodland, fields and grass. The house had suffered such heavy bombardment for three months that Captain Germon allowed only a few people at a time to risk themselves on its unstable roof. We had to wait a few moments for a party to descend but, as it happened, when Oliver and I then mounted into the open, we found ourselves alone.

The crimson globe of the sun just tipped the dark and gleaming masses of the mango groves to the west, suspended in a shot-silk sky of salmon and silver. Small mackerel clouds of silver-tipped grey, hardly larger than my hand, swam in a diaphanous sea, dissolving, disappearing, reforming mysteriously as they went. Shafts of light, fugitives from the gauzy prison of the cloudlets, cut swathes of gold through foliage and over furrowed fields, and struck brief flame from the gilded domes and minarets before us. Below the gold, the crowded city sprawled in peaceful quiet under a pall of dark cooking-smoke, like a tiger sleeping in the shade. Despite the depredations of war in the foreground, the ruined buildings and the tumbled streets, it was very beautiful.

‘Damn it, it’s downright beguiling—still.’ Oliver smiled, speaking more to himself than to me. ‘All these shabby grandeurs and relics of decayed majesty. Wonder what will become of them when this is over? Whether they’ll be torn down to make way for more and dirtier bazaars in the name of betterment, or whether they’ll just be allowed to fall to pieces with time. Don’t suppose anyone will ever live in them again, but I’d be sorry to see them go. Not a one but has its history of treachery and revenge, jealousy and bloody retribution. And sometimes of love. Ghosts too, of course, and rooms that are accursed. Oudh notables seldom died in bed.’

‘They still don’t,’ I pointed out.

‘True. And no doubt in time the episode through which we have lived here will prove a veritable quarry of myth and fable regarding the Oudh notables of today. Who knows, perhaps in time even we unnotables will be found to be more than pawns on a political chessboard suddenly overturned in a fit of rage. Good God, I might be remembered as a hero!’

‘Then you had better arrange to meet your heroic end before you blemish your record further. If it’s left to Mrs Bonner, you will certainly figure as the villain of the piece.’

‘Why? It must be three full days since I last tried to seduce her daughter.’

‘Perhaps that’s the trouble. She told Kate last night that she had a good mind to “enlighten” me on your shortcomings of character and conduct. She didn’t want to see me throw myself away on you.’

‘And a very estimable sentiment, too. My opinion of the lady soars.’

‘Fancy managing to remember all the ill-natured tattling of cantonment tea-drinkings in our present situation.’